Beautiful Dreamer
by Surrender
Summary: A life of dreams. A handful of broken fairytales. A sprinkle of fairy dust. A breath of cigarette smoke. One last bullet. The history of Julia.
1. Hazy Recollection

Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy BeBop, or any characters in it

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I hate this place. I hate the way the smell of smoke lingers here like a thousand phantom cigarettes. But I guess I only have myself to blame for that.

It's a bad habit, I know. You should quit, I tell myself. But I know I never will. It doesn't really matter, when I think about it. I doubt I'll live long enough for it to matter.

I can't remember when I first started to hate it here.

Maybe I've always hated it.

Yes, that seems about right.

I guess it's just something you get used to, like when you cut yourself on a piece of glass and a shard stays in your skin. In time, it heals, the skin grows over, until the whole things just a memory of blood and pain.

Sometimes, it still hurts, but never as much as it did that first time. You can remember how much it hurt then, but you can't relive it anymore, not even when you press where the wound used to be.

But it's still there, the glass, I mean. Still inside you, always being pulled, drawn in to your core, or whatever it is that makes humans tick, and think, and feel.

Whatever it is that died when he left.

I cherish those memories of pain, because they prove that I'm really alive.

Or used to be, anyway.

…

He asked me to come with him. Whatever else he said, he asked me to come with him. He didn't know how, but he knew when, and why. He said we could figure out the rest.

I said I didn't know if I could. I was so dry, so hollow, I didn't think I had the strength. I said we couldn't, we couldn't.

But he left, anyway.

He told me to meet him there. Where the dreams end, and the memories mean nothing, and there is no pain, and reality is all there is, just what's there, a blank slate to start on again.

He said, We can keep each other awake. We won't get lost in dreams anymore.

But what is there, without dreams? What is real, I know, but was does that mean? What is real? Are we even real anymore? Or are we just the lights and sounds of someone else's imagining?

I don't know, he said, and there was something so empty in his voice, something broken. I can't tell what begins where all this ends, or even if I'll ever make it, but I know I have to try. And I know I want you to be there.

His name found its way from my heart to the warm air before my lips, more sigh than substance.

And then he was there, his arms shutting out the rest of the world. He could look at me and surround me, and I could bury myself in him, and take him in as long as possible, like holding my breath, until I needed him again.

He said, I promise. Nothing bad will happen, I promise, and I wanted to believe him, with his smell of night air and cigarettes, of being alive.

Maybe that's why I loved him.

He smelt of being truly alive, out in a dormant twilight, watching life dissolve around you, trying to hold onto yourself, like water slipping between your fingers.

All of it, every word and breath, was so surreal, yet I knew it was happening, I knew there had to be more to this than smoke and mirrors, because I felt it, a quiet, yearning shock, somewhere deep in me, where that sliver of glass lay still, the part he kept alive.

I wanted to hold on to him forever, just melt away and become a part of him. I didn't even care if it was a dream anymore. I felt his warmth and life flow into me, and my heart kept beating, and for the first in so long, beyond even the most distant hazy recollection, that jumpy little pang resounded through me.

I was happy.

I whispered his name again, soft, needful, my fingers wrapped into his coat, and a piece of my soul poured into him.

Why -my voice had fled, I could barely speak- why can't I fell without you? Unless you're here, I'm so numb, like the rest the world is made of ice, and you, you're the only fire left, a living spark.

He said, It's this place. Everything's a dream. When you wake up, you'll be able to feel ever moment, and you'll know how alive you are, because you'll be able to feel it. And then you won't need me anymore, but I'll be there anyway, because you make me whole, and that has nothing to with dreams.

He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled at the edges, and I could see lightning in them, and rain, wind, snow, stars, days of smelling grass and earth on the air, feeling the sun, warm, like it used to be, like it's supposed to be, shattering when it sets, like a bowl dropped to the floor by trembling hands, sending sparks of neon light into the powdery, darkening sky, dampened and smeared, into nights of him, and only him, his arms to warm me, our life-forces pooling around us, our heartbeats uniting, the last rays of dying light tossing themselves forward from the bleeding sun, onto wrinkled sheets and the smell of smoke.

In his eyes, I saw myself reflected in a new, purer light, like a word you only hear in prayers.

It was like the story about the boy with glass in his heart, and the girl who loved him found him in the castle made of ice, and cried and cried until her love melted the cold inside of him. When all seemed lost, she could save him with a single kiss, a seed planted in the mind that spurts a blinding white light before it dies forever.

Let's leave, he said, we'll leave here and never look back, no regrets, no loss. Just you and me, we'll soar away and meet the horizon, and no one can ever touch us.

What if we get too close to the sun? Will our wings melt away into useless lumps of wax again?

He told me I was better than this place, the first one to say it, and believe it.

Am I? Sometimes I think I was made for it.

Don't –and his voice would grow stern- don't talk like that.

But it was the truth.

He said, Come with me. After all else, the lies, the secrets, he said, Come with me.

I said I didn't think I could. I was so scared –did he think they would let me?- I didn't have the will.

But he had to leave, and I had to let him.

And then he was gone, and all I had was the pain.

I was so empty, but it hurt so much.

Like a little piece of glass, never leaving, never growing, just that comfortable, throbbing ache, the kind you only notice when you think about it. And every time you think about it, it hurts a little less.

Is it really getting better?

Or, are you just getting used to it?

Maybe it's finally reached your heart.

Where is he now? The warmth, the light, the spark boy? Somewhere out in the rain of the world, being drenched and drowned? Somewhere you can't protect him.

If you could ever protect him, anyway.

…

I should have known he was only a dream. He was too wonderful, too beautiful, too perfect to be true. He held me too close, made my heart beat too fast, loved me too much.

That's why I lost him. I let him wake me up, and he faded away.

I found, then, that I didn't have anything anymore.

Just a will to sleep, to make everything better, to never want to wake up, to find a place where I could never know, never leave, but where at least I'd have him again.

A crown of steel against my hair, pressing into my skin, digging into me.

An anger settling on my shoulders, smothering, smoldering.

Just that, and this place.

…

He, not that one which I loved, but brutal, merciless, vicious, all seven deadly sins and a sword, he broke. One had finally escaped, and the other saw red.

He pressed the barrel to my skull, his finger making the trigger tap, trembling with rage.

So, -his voice was the agitated growl of a sleeping lion, the roar of a distant train,- you thought you could betray me? Thought I wouldn't notice?

He put all his rage into it, his new metallic hand, I felt it cut into me, and blood trickled like a falling star, down my temple, and his finger steadied.

I closed my eyes, Go ahead, and I didn't let my pounding heart shake my voice.

Then a rush of air to my mind, and the gun clicked to the table, an offering of freedom.

Destroy him, said the lion, or I'll destroy you.

…

He told me to meet him there. He said, by the graves, not in them. We would see it one last time, and forget it. Where we were going would be an eternity of tomorrows. We would never look back but to remember when we used to only have each other, so long ago, -remember when?- never look far enough ahead to worry about that place, where you mourn what used to be, what might have been, where you remember then because now is too horrible to bear.

One more time, he said, Just one more time.

How could I make sure it was the last place he ever saw?

Just one more time…

Then I would be the one, the solitary figures among the grey forgotten, trying to recall what it was to be alive, before I shot my soul and buried him six feet underground.

He would be waiting for me, long coat, hopeful eyes, that stupid yellow shirt… and he would smell like cigarettes.

I'll quit, he told me, We'll both quit. But I knew he wouldn't. Neither of us could. Maybe it doesn't matter, anyway. Besides, it was such a part of him that if he stopped smoking, he might stop being him.

It was raining, how long would he wait? Pouring, drowning, dragging rain, the kind that steals away in the middle of the night with tiny villages no one's ever heard of tucked neatly under one arm, not leaving a trace besides a misplaced shoe, a pile of splintered wood.

Would the ground be all mud, yet? Were there streams of slimy pulling at his shoes?

How long would he wait?

I watched the world through a frame, that same, dingy view of empty streets outside a pane of glass.

Could I do it? I would finally be free from this place, but, considering the price, was it worth it?

Could I honestly face him for the last time, hold out the gun, and bury a bullet in the only person I've ever cared for?

Could I bear the pain, the hatred, the utter despair in his eyes?

He would freeze, stiffen, fall…

Would I honestly be able to walk away while my reason for living bled out into the dirt? While his eyes glazed over, the images of wonder I so longed for sealed forever behind the dull sheen of barren promise?

Could I really just leave? All my hopes, our plans and dreams of leaving at last, of being together somewhere far away, would die with him, snuffed out like a candle.

I would walk until the silent shapes of the cemetery faded into the curtain of rain behind me, and then what?

I would never see him again, and it would be all my own fault.

Could I do it?

I locked the windows and door.

Keep me in, I whispered, Never let me see the light of day, never move, never feel.

But let him live.

It was raining, how long would he wait?


	2. Broken Childhood

**Disclaimer-** I do not own Cowboy BeBebop, which means I do not own the character I am writing about. Silly, isn't it?

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In the fairytale, they would have named her Beauty. 

It was the sharp, sickly beauty of a child born too soon, scraped raw and bare by a mother's neglect.

Four months early, said the nurse, she's barely alive, not even whole.

They moved her like something precious, like a glass star, and put her in a box, on white blankets of snow, where a tiny artificial sun fought to grow her like an orchid. Snakes of cream and gold twisted into whisper-thin veins and a disdainful heartbeat barely flickered on a stone-faced monitor, faint as some far-fizzling star going supernova a million lightyears away. The room seemed to pull with every steady beep, as if the very fabric of reason were protesting the life of this one small infant.

She didn't cry, didn't move at all, just lay beneath the spider web of tubes and wires, arms bent, like a crucified insect, paralyzed and drained.

The nurses floated in and out, starched specters in their sterile world. They seemed untouched by the pain, illness, and grief around them, as if they wore mists of tangible magic tied around them like kites. Quick black marks bled over white charts, yes, she's breathing, yes, her heart is beating, no, she still can't do it by herself. Occasionally, a doctor wandered in, almost lost, a surgical mask over the frowning mouth.

Give her another week, always another week.

No one really seemed to care, but they wouldn't take her off life-support, as if, were she gone, it would rip a whole out of their perfect bleached lives.

More than likely, no one wanted to be bothered with it.

And so, out of convenience, they left her there, the minute wisp of life, to grow under a heat lamp like bacteria, her insides moving to the beat of a machine's steady will, and the constant blip of her shooting-star heart lulling her to sleep.

Another week, always another week, and smoke was bound in the flesh of time, skeletal digits became fingers, still thin, but real, and string-limp limbs knotted into pale arms and smooth, round legs.

And then, where there was once only the fleeting dream of a life, there was a child.

And she was beautiful. From the moment she entered this silicone reality, she was beautiful. She was beautiful, and she was trouble.

The nurse saw it for her mother, still just a child herself, it would take over, it would consume. The mother saw it for the father, this child that wasn't supposed to still exist. One would destroy the other; they couldn't both stay.

But she did.

They asked, did she want to hold the baby?

The mother sneered, Is she still alive? Too bad.

Don't you want to hold your baby? Don't you want to see her?

The mother looked away, seeing far beyond the white hospital, the white nurses, the white child, the white, white, white.

Won't you even look at her?

So she did, out of spite, she told herself, just to see the monster of her sins. She ignored the part that said, You knew all along that you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from wanting it.

It was supposed to be a quick glance, see, scowl, stop. Turn away and never look again.

But when she saw, she saw more than the oddly calm infant, more than was there, probably. She saw him again, his sleek eyes, his cheekbones. She meant only to look, to see, scowl, stop, but there she was, and the girl was in her arms, gazing up.

And there he was, too.

…

She was clean, now, they had given her a blood test to prove it, and now they had to let her go, had to let her take the baby with her. As far as they knew, neither had a name, neither had a home. The mother walked away with her daughter, smooth as smooth, and vanished. The girl was gone, the beautiful, the dangerous. They knew she was dangerous. Everyone after that did, too.

They looked into her eyes, too dark, too deep, too haunting for one so young, saw the shiny slips of gold around her little face, noticed how quickly she could walk, and write, but how she never spoke, and they knew. Whenever stares settled on her, it was a red flag, or a smell of lavender, or a scarlet letter.

They knew, but they loved her, anyway.

And, for a while, the mother did, too.

For a little while she cuddled and cooed, rocked and sang, and loved and loved. She knew, though, that she was not fooling herself. She could not love this child, this thing that was the incarnation of everything she had ever done wrong. She learned to see past what ensnared the others, made her child feel unworthy. She did not love her, why would they?

She rejected her daughter, pushed away the paining girl who wanted only her mommy's love, who instead was told she was worthless; punishment, mistake.

One thing, her mother said, they only want one thing from you. It's all your father wanted. It's all they ever want.

She rarely mentioned the father, only when she had been out again, or when the acrid smell of the little apartment grew worse.

Once, he had called, and the mother had yelled, curses flowing free, as if a dam in her soul had broken and she couldn't keep herself in.

After that, she had given the daughter a bath. That was the first time she tried to kill her. But her eyes were wide under the water, and the air bubbles that came to the surface popped with "Mommy!" and she was hauled up again, to cling, wet and sobbing, to her savior.

Did I do something wrong, she wanted to know, What did I do?

She swore she was sorry, so sorry, she'd never do it again, only please mommy never do that again, either.

The second time was the same.

By the third time, and the fourth, the girl had learned to bite, and bit hard, crying and apologizing for hours after, I'm sorry mommy, but I was so scared, why do you keep doing that?

The mother would be calm, her eyes filmed over with the rheum of intoxication, and she would pat her daughter's head, I'm cleansing you, dear. You're filthy with the reek of my sins, you know. Yes, I'm cleansing you.

The fifth time, the mother simply grew bored and freed the girl, and the sixth, the alcohol made her sick, and she had to turn from the tub to vomit in the corner. Her child fled while she was turned. Why don't you love me, mommy? Why won't you ever love me?

The seventh time was when it happened. She hurled the girl into the bathroom, still stinking of the mother's putrid regurgitations, and locked the door. The tub was full, up to the brim with the sharp, iridescent death that had for so long stayed her hand.

Outside, she howled, Drown already! Stupid, stupid child, you weren't supposed to happen! Go away, take his eyes and his smile and die with them!

But the girl pounded the door and begged her mommy to let her out. There were tears in the eyes her mother said were not hers, cries from the mouth that held her father's smile.

Then there was the noise, like somebody had popped the world, and the floor fell away, and what was that red coming from under the door?

She couldn't remember how she opened the door, only that she did, and outside was a messy studio, splattered with red, red, red.

She closed her eyes and silenced her mind and was overwhelmed. No, that couldn't be blood. No one could live without that much blood.

Mommy? She left her hands over her ears, and tears somehow made their way through, past her closed eyes, sliding down her lashes. The smell in the room made her sick, acrid, venomous, thick, stifling. She gave up the contents of a bare stomach to be displayed across the battleground home she knew so well.

In front of the couch, she saw her mommy, red as red, and right in step with the rest of the room. She was like the background of a painting, not to be noticed, not to be touched.

But she was mommy, and the child could not leave her. She shook her, grasped the shoulder that was slimy and tacky to the touch. Her mother turned towards her, and an empty stomach was pressed again. The girl stumbled back, propelled herself away from the face that was no longer her mother's. That could not be her, that face that was open, wet, that was red and purple and white in some places where bone peeked out from the carnage of a tortured woman's regret.

Mommy? That wasn't her, where was she? Mommy? The daughter toddled through the tiny space, looking for the face she knew, with skin and smile and eyes, not blank chasms and warm and black and red.

…

They called it a foster home, but that was a lie. It was a warehouse with cots and blankets that smelt of curdled milk, a row of rusted steel sinks along the wall, a garage with a greasy kitchen, a cluster of outhouses too close to an open window, a smattering of kind, plump women who were part of an order that believed in something vague and unhelpful. And there was a doctor, young, with dreams that were just beginning to seem very, very far away. He cried for her, when he didn't think she was looking, when she was supposed to be asleep, and she loved him for it. She liked the way he smiled at her when she woke up from her day-long slumbers, and how big he seemed, like he could shield her from anything, and stop her from falling into the gorge inside herself. He held her hand, and told her funny stories, and gave her extra blankets because she was so small. And when she fell asleep again, she dreamed of him, taking her to a home with a neat, gingerbread smell, and a warm bed, and her mommy, tucking her in, kissing her forehead, saying, I love you, my one, perfect daughter.

As she slept, the doctor swept away her tears and brushed away the wisps of golden hair that clung to her face.

She dreamt of his voice, loud and nasal, yet caring. In her white thoughts, she heard him and it meant she was safe.

Every time she woke and saw him, she knew she loved him.

He, too, had grown fond of the girl, in the manner all others did. Grown fond of her trusting smile, her flushed cheeks and perfect teeth, her heavy, dreamy, eyes. And, like all other men who saw her, the doctor couldn't help but wonder, try to see her as a woman. She looked so close as it was, the high cheekbones, and already-developing features of one much older than she. She would grow more beautiful as time passed. In a way, the doctor longed to see her grown, but even he knew she would be dangerous.

Occasionally, they wouldn't be able to wake her. She was so tired, her mommy hardly ever let her sleep, When you're dead, she would say, When you're dead there'll be time. Then her daughter would cry, reach her arms out, beg, Please, mommy, please stop waking me up, please turn out the lights, please let me sleep, mommy. I'm so sleepy, my eyes hurt so bad.

The mother would curse her child, throw her away, scream, Stay back, keep away from me, filthy monster. You deserve to die for what you are, and to rot forever in hell! She couldn't look at the stupid girl, the child who was even more beautiful when she cried.

You, the mother growled like thunder, you will be broken one day. You will meet a man, and he will fill your head with warm and soft, and you will surrender.

Then, the mother would hiss close, and the taint of her amber release choked her daughter, fastened into her nostrils and throat until she couldn't cry, couldn't breathe.

He will get inside of you and tear you apart.

When she woke this time, the doctor wasn't there. Transferred somewhere else, they said, another home or a hospital. A new doctor will arrive soon.

That was when she knew. He wasn't going to take her far away, to a mommy that would love her, to somewhere with silver linings like necklaces and clouds to sleep on.

He wasn't meant to save her.

Maybe she wasn't meant to be saved?

All the same, it hurt.

There would be no happy ending to her fairytale. They hadn't named her anything at all.

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Thanks to **Reality **and **Iphegenia2003** for their reviews!


	3. The Deadly Sins and Fairy Dust

**Disclaimer-** I do not own Cowboy Bebop, or any of its characters.

**Reality-** I'm so sorry, yes it is Julia. Thank you for you review!

A short chapter describing the in-between from childhood to the Julia that we know.

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Nowhere could keep her forever. She was nothing, nameless, she belonged nowhere, so what reason was there to stay? Rules, walls, doors, locks, there was no barrier to her, the quicksilver breeze, the skeleton key of gold, the midwinter phantom that smiled shyly through her hair, and too soon learned that everyone would listen.

…

They found her before she found them, and somehow, when she needed them. Angry, at first, they moved against her, but blinked, and saw some of themselves in her eyes; eyes dry not because she didn't want to cry, but only because she had no tears left. Against her forehead, she bore a mark, one that they all knew, one that no one could see, but avoided by instinct, a mark you couldn't wash off, couldn't cover. It bled through, burned through, loved only itself. You have the Mark of Cain, they told her, You belong with us. All of them were mistakes, they said, all of them sins. Deadly sins, the kind you go to Hell for. You belong with us. Hope, who smiled too often, and Justice, who still cried, and Faith, who talked to angels.

They knew the words to heal her wounds, knew the songs that played in the dark, knew where there were only kind faces and empty promises. They knew the itchy, anxious pain of glass, right under the skin, the smell of water, and blood, and smog, and what you could sell, and how much, before it destroyed you. They wanted her, needed her, wove her into their world until she was no more than a beautiful fly, caught in their sharp and glittering web. They named her Beauty, and she was their queen.

…

His name was Dream, and he was her king. When he was young, he told her, he lived with a family that wasn't his, with a mother that couldn't see him and an older brother who told him he loved him. Then one day he dreamt that the sun disappeared, and when he woke up, he couldn't see the light that other people followed, and got lost in the forest that he had never been in until then. Some people, he said, just go there, without knowing it. They find each other. Hope had run away with her stepfather when she was twelve, Justice killed her uncle, and Faith fell in love with a priest. Then there was Laugh, who used to be happy. All that was left of his family was ash. Mercy couldn't smile, anymore, but she forgave him. All of them had wandered into Dream's forest, and learned to light their own fires to keep warm.

Dream learned what it means to love Beauty, and, in return, he taught her how to fly. The secret is Fairy Dust, he told her. Sprinkled golden or mixed with water and smeared across the wrists. It went straight through the skin, and sang through the veins. Sometimes, Faith would fill a needle and send it straight to his blood, and that was when he cried. Laugh took the Dust and added whites and blues and Ashes, until all the colors swam like disobedient fish. Then he pinched a nostril and taught her how to breathe. It made them powerful, made them invisible, but most of all, made them forget. Beauty forgot angry words, sticky nights of red, and a doctor who used to cry for her. She forgot, and forgot, and, when she was full of Fairy Dust, she wasn't dangerous anymore.

…

She tried to tell herself she loved him. Sometimes, when her stomach was empty, but her veins were full, she could almost believe. When her wrists and her sheets were sticky, and she was caught up in the arms of Dreams, then that tiny sliver of glass would remind her that she had a heart.

Love was easier to give at night, in a world of fading neon and fading stars, where everything was dying inside and out, and she became a part of the heavy air. Sometimes, in the light of day, the darkness in her heart seemed farther away, forbidden and painful, but at night it was everywhere, connected to her by a string that pulled out another Beauty, numb and free, a live wire, spraying sparks that made you think it was safe, think it was warm, think it was bright. She attracted the Sins of the street, and they grew, drawn to her like insects to the unyielding artificial glow that pulsed at every window, pressing in throngs against the glass of those who had taken her in, Hope, Faith, Laugh, Mercy, Justice, and Dream, the ones who had loved her first.

She tried to tell herself she loved them.

Every day, he told her he loved her. There's no beauty here, he said, none but you. You can't leave me, not ever. When his fingers wound around her wrist, and his breath was in her hair, she swore she wouldn't. Good, he said, because if you leave, you'll lose your wings.

So she stayed.

…

The morning He made a speech, Beauty was in the street, her hands pressed against a Hope who wanted to know, could she feel it kick? Then the screen in the sky buzzed a little, and the news anchor stuck a finger in her ear. It's the senator, she said, with an address to the people. Men in suits stopped on the sidewalk and looked up, squinting for what was important to them. High against the skyline, His face appeared, smiling. He straightened His tie. Beauty only turned when he spoke; His voice was the kind of voice that made you listen, made the hearts of young girls speed up, made their heads heavy and filled it with softness. Hope turned, too, and said, You have the same eyes.

And Beauty found then that she couldn't breathe.

It was Him. The face in her mother's nightmares, the calm, heartless voice on the other end of the phone, the sound that broke the world.

And from her lips slid the word, and she hated herself the moment it met the air and froze, crystal and tangible as her breath.

Daddy.

…

The secretary was new, and nervous, so when the girl came in, with eyes she knew, and a smile she craved, and spoke too fluently to be lying, she believed her. His daughter? How nice to meet you. Your brothers have dark hair, don't they? You're so lucky to look like your father. Then the girl smiled, too strained, and the secretary blushed. Not that your mother isn't lovely, I only meant…

But she was gone, brushing by, leaving an acrid edge to the air.

He wasn't facing her when she entered, but felt her heat at his back, and turned. She felt suddenly foolish, what did she want from him?

To see him, to smell him, to hug him, to be loved by him.

To free the razor-words on her tongue, to demand her mother's life, to destroy him.

He was older, lined and tired, but still handsome, still the man who had devoured her mother. When He saw her, what was his was invisible, all that was there was Her, she who had been here before.

Julia? He was close, his fingers against her cheek, making sure she was real, making sure she was warm. You haven't changed-I heard you'd died. His lips were on her hair, on her forehead. You're still so beautiful.

He wanted to kiss her, and a part of her wanted to let him. Then the secretary's voice rang in her head, the guilty tone with which she took in his daughter, and the floor fell away, and blood came under the door, and, behind her, the bathtub was full.

If she let him, he would destroy her, too. If she didn't, he would find someone else. He would keep destroying, keep devouring, keep violating everything good and sacred until there was nothing left.

She couldn't let that happen.

…

She hadn't meant to use the gun, she didn't even know why she had brought it. But, as she wept through the hallways, it was suddenly unbearably hot against her hand.

It occurred to her that she should feel guilty; maybe this heat was guilt. But outside, it had begun to snow, and the frigid air blew through her clothes, and the gun-metal cooled.

And the frigid air blew through her soul, and something else cooled, too. Her heart hardened. And her conscience narrowed.

At the same time, she felt newly-made, clean, and light. She didn't need the wings of the Sins anymore; she was free.

It was a Baptism by fire, by blood, by snow.

Hope ran to her, Beauty, have you heard? They found the Senator dead, they think his daughter has been kidnapped.

She looked at Hope, no smile on her lips, no hunger in her veins. Something had died, and something had been born. Things were no longer as they were before. And she knew it.

And Hope knew it too. The mark that had been was wiped away. In its place was a new mark, born of blood, a stain on her hands. She was whole, now, no longer a Sin, but a person, and more alone than ever. She didn't belong with them anymore.

She looked at Hope with empty eyes, and there was no recognition in them.

My name is Julia, she said.


	4. Friday's Child

**Disclaimer-**I own nothing.

I know it's been a long time since I updated, I'm so sorry. I was going to introduce Vicious and Spike in this chapter, but for some reason, this story told itself instead. They'll be in the next chapter, but for now I hope you enjoy another event of Julia's life before the sydicate. It reads a little more like a story than some of the past chapters, but I don't think that's going to last. It'll go back to being more stream-of-conciousness after this.

**mistatephoenix-**Thanks so much! I didn't like all the angst at first, but now I'm just going with it. It's easier than fighting it. : )

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The whole and the broken cannot exist in the same space; they are too alike, similar poles of a magnet, and so they shun one another, press apart against soft walls with all the force of an expanding sun. 

The whole and the broken always exist in the same space; they cannot subsist without one another, for what is whole can always be broken, and what is broken can sometimes be repaired. They are at once equal and opposite, the cause and effect, the illness and the cure. They are music and silence, promises and lies, dreams and love and a world of white and red.

She was the whole and the broken. She was porcelain, she was glass, beautiful and shattered. She swept the shards into herself, a guilty child sweeping them under the rug, to keep them hidden, so no one could ever find them, so she wouldn't be discovered, wouldn't get in trouble. If you looked closely enough, there was the telltale lump of fabric at the center, where the pieces of something that could have been wonderful were hidden forever. She was sloppy at the edges, smiled too readily, meant it too seldom. If you looked close enough, you could see the storm raging within her and around her, but no one ever looked, and she swept along in the eye of her hurricane, and not even the wind ever touched her.

She learned what it meant to be alone, independent as so many put it, like it was something good, not to be feared and avoided and handled like a sleeping lion, learned what it meant to be fully and wholly yourself, to not need anyone to complete your identity.

She learned what it was to be whole, and she found it made her weak.

There were no more Dreams to distract her, no Faith to sustain her, no Hope to comfort her. There were no nights to get lost in, no neon to drown the part of her that was still afraid of the dark. And the darkness within her grew, and she could not face it.

So Beauty did not die altogether, but she and Julia were not the same. Beauty was her sin, and with her it remained. She gave to Beauty her pain, her fear, her hunger and thirst, her sight and her hearing.

She gave to Beauty her past, and this made her free.

And when Julia walked away from Hope, Beauty lagged behind.

Memories that had haunted her became like letters written by someone she had known, once, long ago, someone for whom she had little love. Images squirmed like worms within in her mind, water rushing under thick ice, words under skin. If she scratched hard enough, and in the right place, everything would come bleeding out, crimson-red and razor-sharp, and it would hurt as much as ever. But she had had her share of pain, and she avoided the spots of her own skin that threatened to destroy her newly-constructed body.

They stopped looking for her within days, when the wife of the Senator assured them that she had no daughter, and the secretary remembered only that she was beautiful, protecting her out of guilty recognition and unspoken, un-asked-for loyalty. Julia watched on the screens of the city as they broadcast pictures set to music and sad quotes stolen from long-dead poets and politicians. The Senator's face continued to smile, his mouth to move in speech, his eyes to sparkle and wink, like an electric ghost over the city square.

And Beauty felt haunted. Julia did not know the man on the screens, but she knew that people missed him, and so she mourned him. She felt as though she ought to thank him for something, but whatever he had given her was known only by Beauty, and Julia was too proud and too smart to ask.

…

She took a job as a waitress at a large, well-lit restaurant, the sort of place where families came while the sun shone, where men came with suits and sunglasses and thin women half their age when the moon was king.

Julia smiled at the families, sugar and laughter, Oh doesn't he look like his father, Would your daughter like another slice of cake? Don't worry, it's on me, she's such a pretty little girl. She learned quickly to be nice to the children, and attend to the parents needs, and watched how her tips would grow. If she added another scoop of ice cream to their sundae, "on the house," or refilled their cups of chocolate milk for free, it always balanced out with credits enough to pay for their entire meal left in her name at the register. She learned quickly, and she learned well.

The men with ties were called the Regulars, and Julia could have written a schedule for their clockwork appearances.

Mondays brought handsome Mr. Smith, with his checkered sport jacket and shoes that Julia could see her face in. Tuesdays were the day for Mr. Johnson, all in black like a priest, who wore a cross pinned to his lapel. On Wednesdays came Mr. Swan, who always brought the same sad-looking girl with short hair that was constantly changing color. Mr. Brown came in on Thursdays -a newly elected politician whose future looked promising, from the things Julia read about him in the papers- who did not yet know enough to use a false surname. The Mr. Miller of Fridays was quiet and kind, and often came alone, seeking solace and peace. Saturdays brought Mr. Silver, who never failed to look tired and harassed. Mr. Keys came in on Sundays, laughing and loud, with his brightly-colored ties and penchant for blondes. He often brought three or more girls with him.

Julia smiled at them, too, and laughed when they touched her, lightly, right under that spot where her apron strings tied, and blushed when their fingers brushed hers. Before long, they all began to request her specifically, and Julia found that her rules held up for her quite well with them. Be kind to the children, for that was what they were; greedy, selfish children, who sought their own wants without regard for others. She kept their secrets, and looked the other way, and never assumed that any woman they were with was or was not Mrs. This-or-that. (And occasionally, they all brought their wives, simply because they knew Julia wouldn't give them away. They trusted her.)

She complimented vain Mr. Smith, spoke soothingly to Mr. Silver, pretended not to be surprised when the Mr. Johnson who was usually in the company of pretty young men introduced a plump, overly-rouged woman as his wife. Mr. Keys she paid specific attention to, for she noticed how he practically drooled over her naturally golden hair, such a drastic contrast to the bottle-bleach-blondes who clung to his arms. She was a sweet and humble creature they had so rarely encountered in their professions, and she could easily have gained the position of secret mistress, could have replaced any of the girls permanently, virtually without effort. But she was always professional, always slightly cold beneath her veneer of friendly naivety, and it kept them interested.

She thought she had proven to herself that she could remain above the petty, deplorable goings-on of the Regulars, but, one day, Mr. Miller took her hand and once again the glass twitched painfully and reminded her that she had a heart. Anyone else, Julia could have resisted, but Mr. Miller had never touched her before, always averted his eyes, never had the usual suggestiveness beneath his words, and always left the largest tips. He was a refuge of a customer. Julia looked forward to Fridays because of him.

And when he gripped her hand and pulled her onto the seat next to him, and spoke to her, and cried, she was lost. It had been years since she had known someone like Mr. Miller, someone honest, someone _good._ He was the doctor in the foster home, with an open, hopeful face, who was slowly being destroyed by the reality that he couldn't do a goddamn thing to save the fucked-up world he lived in. He held her close, and wept on her shoulder, and the warmth of his tears melted the carefully-constructed barrier of ice within her. A tiny river of Beauty leaked out, and Julia once again knew the longing to be held, to be wanted, to be loved. She pressed her cheek to the top of Mr. Miller's head, and wrapped her arms around his shaking frame, and loved him.

There was no way for her to avoid loving him. He was her weakness, her salvation, and their broken souls matched up perfectly, like the halves of those stupid charms couples sometimes gave each other, two pieces of a broken heart that fit together just so. She loved him because he was broken, and because she was broken. She loved him because he was something she would never be.

Wait here, she told him. I get off in an hour. Wait here.

He waited. And when the restaurant was dark, and the doors were locked, he went with her to her small, dingy apartment and she helped him taste how it felt to be whole. She didn't even bother to turn the lights on, just held his hand and led him through her darkened home. She couldn't turn the lights on, for sin has no place in the light. It thrives in darkness, where it can't be seen, and once more her inner darkness was everywhere, surrounding her and dragging her back to that place of Dreams. But Mr. Miller was not used to the dark. He was a creature of light, and Julia cried silently as she polluted him.

Gregory, he told her, was his name. She hadn't known the first names of any of the Regulars until then, and that made it sacred. It was too late to turn back, now. She knew it was wrong, dangerous, she was deceiving him by allowing him to think that she was pure, was kind, was even fractionally as good as he was, but she needed him. She was just as bad as Mr. Monday, or whatever he called himself, just as bad as all the men who wore lies like their perfectly tailored suits. She was a selfish child, because she had never gotten the chance to properly be a selfish child, and now Gregory would have to pay for that.

And he paid willingly, and called her an angel. His Angel. Later, when she knew how he kissed, what his sweat tasted like, knew the smell of his breath and the warmth of his skin, when they lay half-awake, twisted sheets and fingers laced, he told her about himself. He had lived in the city all his life, he said, he was used to the filth and crime and smog to a degree that truly frightened him. He wanted to change it, to make it better; it was why he had run for office in the first place. He tried to be honorable. An honest politician. It was laughable, he knew, but he didn't think there would be any harm in trying. Maybe he could do some good. He got elected, after all, so did that show some sort of longing for it out there?

He was happy, for a while. He fell in love with the daughter of a man who owned a company that fulfilled some vague but vitally important purpose. They got married.

Julia made a noise- He wasn't making her uncomfortable, was he? He could stop. No? She was sure? Okay, then.

He had two children; two boys, wild eight-year-old twins. They take after their mother, he said. They were the best thing in his life. When they were two, they got sick, and while they were in the hospital, he learned that their mother had been feeding them small amounts of rat poison in their apple juice every morning. They called it an illness, a black disease in her mind, and they sent her away for a while to get better. The boys sent her cards with smiling yellow suns and smiling purple flowers and smiling stick-figure families from their own little hospital beds. He never really forgave her for that. She came back four months later, all tearful apologies, kissing the boys and swearing she was cured. Gregory had hugged her for the cameras, feeling all the while as though it was him that had been poisoned, for part of him had certainly been killed.

He took to sleeping on the couch, and requested a divorce some short time later, but his wife's father was not willing for his daughter to suffer through such a thing, and he paid Gregory great sums of money in secret to make the whole thing go away. He refused it, but the father persisted- Did Gregory know what would happen to his boys if their parents got divorced? Did he realize how they would suffer? So the money switched hands, dirty money, and he couldn't bear to hold onto it, so he gave it all away to hospitals, orphanages, anyone who needed it or would take it.

After that, he tried to make things work with his wife, he swore, and here he began to cry again. But she was so cold. He wondered if she had been having an affair, or was having one still. He had considered having one himself, he knew many of the men he worked with were having them, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. There was opportunity enough, beautiful women and willing girls and other people's lonely wives. But they held no pull.

What makes me different? Julia wanted to know. She expected the token, political answer, the reassurance of 'you're special,' that she craved. But Gregory wound her hair around his finger and kissed her forehead.

I don't know, he said. I don't consider this an affair. It's too right. An affair is something guilty and dirty; this is good. This is good. And you're good. You've saved me, when I didn't think I could be saved. I've been considering suicide, you know. A handful of pills or a gun in my mouth. But I couldn't do that to my boys. It's different, now. I want to live. I want to live so I can keep seeing you. I want to live for the sake of life. And then he buried his face in the gold of her hair and said, you're an angel. What man can resist an angel?

She had never felt less like an angel. Gregory wasn't Dream and Julia wasn't Beauty, and she couldn't be convinced that she was something she wasn't, anymore.

Despite the guilt she felt, she kept going back to him Every Friday, when she was done with work, she would take his hand and lead him home. And suddenly everything was different, and it remained the same. The Regulars still came, still touched, still tipped, still trusted her to keep their secrets. And she remembered a time when they were a world apart, in a time before she became one of their secrets. Gregory started coming more often; Monday through Friday, Sunday through Saturday, and eventually Julia just quit altogether. She spent all her time with him. They got careless, went to museums and concerts and bars, walked together in the sun and found that no one gave them a second glance. Sometimes, they just talked, but more often they ended the day in each others arms, full of sin and feeling holy.

She was sitting in front of the mirror one morning, brushing her hair, humming to herself, when he came out of the bathroom. His hair was wet, he was smiling, a towel wrapped around his waist. She watched his reflection in the glass, feeling her heart swell. He was handsome, that was undeniable, with dark eyes and hair, and she smiled as he approached her. He leaned down to peck her cheek, like it was the most normal thing in the world. They glanced at themselves in the mirror.

Don't we make the couple, he said. She looked.

And froze.

There she was, the politician's dirty little secret, the beautiful young angel who had captured his heart. There he was, smiling at her, handsome and addictive. He had her mother's hope and her naivety, she had her father's irresistibility and jaded cynicism. The situation was the same, only the roles had been reversed.

With horror, she realized the she had not ended the cycle- she had assured its continuation.

She was her father's daughter. She had corruption in her veins. It was her nature to destroy everything she touched. She was dangerous, and now she knew it.

He begged her not to end it, not to leave him, but she would not change her mind. She would not even touch him. She stopped returning his calls. He came to her building and persuaded her neighbors to let him in, but she wouldn't open the door to him. One day, he forced his way in, only to find her apartment empty. The drawers had been cleared out, the pictures packed away, every touch of her was gone. Someone else moved in the next week. They didn't know where she had gone.They had found a scrap of paper on the kitchen table, was it for him? Gregory was written on it. Was that him? They looked at him with curious eyes, trying to read his story on his skin.

He sobbed as he took it. She had given him his name back. He was one of the Regulars again, and that made it easier for her to leave. She wasn't coming back.

Mr. Miller went home, hands deep in his pockets. When he woke the next morning, the world was as dark and cold as it had always been, but he could remember a vivid dream he'd had about an angel who had kissed life into him and he felt strong enough to hope again.

…

Julia cried herself to sleep for longer than she could bear. The room she had moved into was not heated, and the tears froze on her cheeks. And, slowly, the ice inside of her froze again, too.

When she woke the next morning, the world was as dark and cold as it had always been, but she could remember a vivid dream she'd had about a man who had offered her the world in a cage, and she laughed at the people who put stock in dreams.

Wake up, Julia. Happy Birthday. You're twenty today. Keep going. You're gonna be okay.

* * *

Mondays child is fair of face,  
Tuesdays child is full of grace,  
Wednesdays child is full of woe,  
Thursdays child has far to go,  
Fridays child is loving and giving,  
Saturdays child works hard for his living,  
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day  
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.


End file.
